Blog posts tagged with Advocacy

Regardless of a nonprofit’s unique mission and goals, legislative advocacy can be an effective tool to further the organization’s cause. A nonprofit organization that is involved in legislative advocacy ultimately allow their members to see an active organization championing their cause. Here are three strategies to help propel your nonprofit organization's legislative advocacy efforts.

At a time when the nonprofit community is bracing for cuts to federal grant funding programs and state budgets, it’s empowering to remember that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens really can change the world.

What can your nonprofit learn from Cleveland and the Cavaliers? That there’s a powerful narrative that exists about your organization—whether you are actively writing it or not—and that you can take better hold of that story, in part by how you shape your grant proposals.

Unfortunately, grant opportunities for grassroots community building and advocacy projects remain limited. Many foundations underestimate their legal latitude to fund nonpartisan advocacy and civic engagement, and most opt to fund projects that result in concrete short-term outcomes as opposed to the perceived ambiguity of long-term social change. Where, then, does that leave the grassroots social justice sector when it comes to getting grants?

Foundation Center’s new tool, Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy, indicates that foundations made grants of almost $299 million between 2011 and 2014 in the campaigns, elections, and voting category, which includes support for implementation, research, reform, and/or mobilizations efforts related to campaign finance, election administration, redistricting, voting access, as well as voter registration, education, and turnout. More than half those grant dollars went for voter registration, education, and turnout initiatives, and, as one might expect, the annual total spiked in 2012, a presidential election year, as did funding for voting rights efforts.